Greenhouses meet Khost’s vegetable demand

KHOST CITY (Pajhwok): Greenhouses recently established in southeastern Khost province have been producing enough vegetables to meet the local demand and reduce reliance on agriculture goods from Pakistan.

Khost City, the provincial capital, is supplied vegetables from 150 greenhouses the Comprehensive Agriculture and Rural Development – Facility (CARD-F) set up over the past few months.

CARD-F provides needs-based services and support to create and sustain licit businesses in rural communities by providing alternative livelihood opportunities and receding into poppy cultivation.

Hazrat Omar, who owns two active greenhouses in Mandozai district, said he daily supplied hundreds of kilograms of vegetables to the market.

He said vegetables grown in the greenhouses had a better taste and dealers themselves visited the greenhouses to buy the vegetables.

Another owner of a green house, Mohammad Asghar, said he harvested cucumber from his greenhouse multiple times higher than his other agriculture products.

He said he had cultivated 4800 cucumber plants in his half acre greenhouse and he had so far supplied 20 tonnes of the harvest to the market in two months.

A vegetables seller in Khost City, Mohammad Rahman, said before the establishment of the greenhouses in the province, the market largely depended on Pakistani vegetables.

He said the greenhouses produced enough vegetables and had reduced the reliance on Pakistani vegetables to a great extent.

In this regard, Khost agriculture director Samiullah Nasrat said more than 100 greenhouses had been built in the province in cooperation with CARD-F and work on another 50 greenhouses was underway.

He said the more than 100 greenhouses had been set the target of producing 620 metric tones of vegetables and it seemed the target would be met.

Khost has enough arable land and a suitable environment for agriculture and the reliance on foreign agriculture products could be completely shunned if the available land is properly utilized.